One's True Self
by Mistress of Craziness
Summary: Colin's making a photo album, and still needs Luna's picture. Slight LLCC. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: **nuT miin3!1! LoLz.!

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_One's True Self_

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"These pictures are great, Colin," Ginny said, flipping through the photo album.

Colin beamed at the praise. "Thanks, Ginny," he replied, a slight blush creeping up on his cheeks. "It means a lot that you like them."

"There's just one thing," she continued, her eyebrows knitting together.

Colin frowned. "What?"

'Oh, no,' he thought to himself, panic washing over him. 'She's going to say something about the four pages dedicated to just her. I knew I shouldn't have done that, but she's just so pretty in pictures- I-I mean, she's pretty in real life too, but she's just so photogenic, and-'

"You don't have any pictures of Luna," she exclaimed, pulling him from his thoughts.

"Really?" he said, trying to hide his relief. He grabbed the photo album from her, and began to look through it. Sure enough, she was right; he had no pictures of the blonde-haired Ravenclaw. "Hm, I could have sworn I got one of her down by the lake."

Ginny shook her head. "Nope, nothing."

"Weird..."

"You should go find her," Ginny suggested; "she said something about going to the library for part of the morning. I mean, you can't have a fifth year memory book without Luna, right?" She giggled, making Colin turn an even deeper shade of crimson then before - he really liked her laugh.

"Yeah, you're right," Colin agreed, averting his eyes away from her. He placed the album in his book bag, slung it over his back, and grabbed his camera from off the table. With a quick, embarrassed good-bye, Colin scurried out of the common room, his face still beat red.

"I really need to learn how to fix my blushing problem," Colin mumbled to himself once he was free of earshot.

The trip to the library was rather boring, but it did allow Colin to get a lot of shots of miscellaneous students. One of his favorite type of pictures to take was when it was unexpected; he liked to get people when they were acting natural, and not all fake with poses. Sure, it usually resulted in them getting extremely pissed at him, and telling him to 'get lost' and that he was a 'creepy', but he didn't mind - he had already gotten what he wanted.

Once he finally made it to the library, he spotted Luna's stringy, blonde-hair right away; she was in a far corner by herself. He would have loved to take the picture of her right there without her knowledge, but it wouldn't really have worked, seeing as how her back was facing him. Sighing with disappointment, he started walking over to her.

A couple of Slytherin girls who were sitting not too far from where Luna was kept looking over at her, pointing and mumbling under their breaths, sometimes stopping to chuckle viciously together. Colin narrowed his eyes at them as he passed, his mouth curled in immediate dislike. They simply glared back when they saw him, but no words were exchanged, and they left soon after.

"Hi, Luna," greeted Colin cheerfully, taking a seat across from her. Colin could see now that she was reading some sort of magazine. She seemed extremely engulfed in it, not even looking up from it as she replied in her usual dreamy voice, "Hello, Colin."

"What are you reading?" he asked, trying to make conversation.

"The latest issue of _The Quibbler_," she answered simply. "Daddy sent it to me this morning. Did you know that a new type of Nargle has been discovered? Supposedly a young couple from Scotland discovered an albino one. That's quite amazing, isn't it?"

"Er, yeah, I suppose," Colin replied respectfully, even though he could care less about the color of a Nargle.

A few moments of awkward silence passed between them. She still had yet to meet his gaze, and it was starting to make him feel uncomfortable. Deciding to get to the point, he reached in to his bag, pulled out the album, and slammed it on the table. This seemed to catch Luna's attention, because her eyes tore away from the magazine at last, and were now staring at it curiously.

"Mind taking a picture?" he asked her, grabbing his camera that had been placed on his lap, and holding it up so she could see it.

"What for?" she said, puzzled.

"Well, I got this strange idea a month ago about a fifth year memory book," he explained to her, pointing at it on the table.

"That's not a strange idea," said Luna thoughtfully.

"Um, thanks," said Colin, smiling shyly. He shook his head slightly. "Anyway, I still don't have a picture of you yet."

A small grin spread across her lips. "You want me to be in it?"

Colin was a little startled by this. "Of course I do! Why would I not? You're my friend, Luna."

Her dazed eyes seemed to light up. "Did you know that some people believe that when you take someone's pictures, you can see their true self?" she said.

Colin blinked. "I guess there is... some truth behind that," he said, shrugging. He stood up from his chair, and lifted the camera to his face. He placed his eye against the viewfinder, and began to focus it so she could be seen better. "Alright, just... keep reading or something." She just continued to stare at him, her head slightly tilted to the side. He lowered the camera. "Erm, problem?"

"Colin, this is a picture - shouldn't I smile?"

"Sure, fine, do whatever you want," Colin said in a rush, raising the camera again. He gave her a good five seconds before snapping the picture, not even really looking through the viewfinder that time. The photo popped out of the camera, blank. He began to wave it about, trying to get the image to show up.

"Mind if I look at these?" she asked politely, lifting the album slightly.

"Go ahead."

Luna smiled with gratitude, and started scanning through the book. Colin continued to fan the picture back and forth for a little over a minute, just to be sure it was done. Finally stopping, he turned it over so he could look at it. 'Okay, let's see-'

His mind immediately went blank, and his mouth fell open. He couldn't believe his eyes - it was Luna, alright, but not like he had ever seen her before. Her long, blonde-hair looked almost like silk in the photo, and he never realized what a brilliant shade of blue her eyes were. Her mouth was spread in to a pretty smile, her straight teeth pearly-white in color. She would simply blink calmly every now and then - nothing major, like Ginny, who would dance around, or start laughing uncontrollably. She just looked so... peaceful. Peaceful, and... beautiful.

He wondered why he had never noticed before. Had he been so caught up with his infatuation with Ginny to not see that there was another girl right in front of his face all along who was just as beautiful, maybe even more? Not only that, but had he been too busy paying attention to the loud, outgoing, sociable girl, and not the girl who was more his speed - the one who was calm, quiet, and a bit of a loner, much like himself? Where did he miss it?

"You have a lot of pictures of Ginny," Luna observed aloud, jerking him out of his trance.

His face shot up; his eyes were wide with shock, looking as if he had just been caught doing something horrible. "Huh? What? Who?" he said, his voice unusually high.

"Ginny. Do you like her?" she said bluntly.

"Um... no, not really," Colin replied mindlessly, absorbing himself back towards the picture in his hands. A faint smile found its way on to Luna's lips that Colin didn't catch.

Colin looked up at her again after a few seconds, watching her eyes dart across the pages of his book. He glanced down at the picture, back up at her, and back down at the photo again, all the while Luna's words from before ringing in his head.

'_Did you know that some people believe that when you take someone's pictures, you can see their true self?_'

It didn't take him long, however, to realize that she had been wrong about this - pictures did not show one's 'true self', or enhance it in anyway; it only captured what was already blatantly there. 'Yeah, obvious enough that I never saw that she was so... gorgeous. Argh, am I really that blind? Was I really that caught up in liking Ginny? I mean, she's dating Harry Potter for goodness sake...! Wow, I feel like I've wasted two years of my life now...'

"Oh, that reminds me," Luna suddenly said, once again pulling Colin away from his thoughts. She closed the album shut, stood up, and grabbed her magazine. He looked up at her once more, his thoughts no longer of the picture he held, but of the girl who stood right in front of him. He began to feel nervous. "I promised Ginny I would help her on her Transfiguration essay today; she's not very good with that subject. I better go find her. I'll see you later, Colin."

He wanted to protest. He wanted to get her to stay, to take more pictures of her for his album, and to just be in her company. But he said nothing, nodded his head in understanding, and gave her a silent wave of farewell. Luna returned the wave, let out a tiny giggle, and began to skip out of the library. Colin watched her depart, her long mane of hair bouncing behind her as she left.

He could feel his face start to heat up - she had a really nice laugh.

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**A/N: **This just suddenly came to me, and I sort of just rolled with it. Kind of fast paced and Colin did a total 180 pretty quickly, but that's what I was aiming for, and that's how I always felt Colin was like. Yeah, if you're wonder why Colin didn't just go with her, it was just because he was too dazed to think of doing that - couldn't really find a place to include that in the story, though. Not sure if there are any other _Colin/Luna _shippers out there... Am I the only one? Hopefully not. But anyway, read and review, even if you have never even considered this pairing. _Por favor?_


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